"There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher from God; for no one can do these signs that You do you unless God is with him."
Jesus answered and said to Him, "Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"
Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'
"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born the Spirit."
Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?"
Jesus answered and said to Him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?
"Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witnesses.
"If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
"No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
"that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."
"He who believes in Him is not condemned; but He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

Message:

Some years ago, a preacher said:
"Perhaps the Church is too much at home in the world. We talk about meeting men on their own ground, about understanding the spirit of our age, about keeping abreast of the times.
Within certain very narrow limits there is truth in these phrases; but there is not in all of them put together, and in all kindred pleas and policies, one atom of the truth that saves the world.....
It is not the world we need to know better, it is the other world!

It is not the language of the street we need to master, it is the language of the kingdom where He reigns whose voice has the music and throb of many waters.....
The sick and the dying, the heartbroken and the desperate, the burdened and oppressed, will find nothing in our easy up-to-dateness to encourage them to trust us with one shamefast confession, one spiritual difficulty one precious secret of hope or fear or sorrow."

Ah! What grave and eternal responsibility lies on the soul of the gospel preacher!

We live in a day when slight cures are of little avail. Calamity has brought its full strength to focus on human life "to knead, overturn, and trample it, to

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squeeze blood and tears from it, to twist it like a whirlwind, to storm it like a tempest, to consume it like a flame. "Men and women need to be confronted with that eternal kingdom which "cannot be shaken, and summoned to enter it. It is the realities of that kingdom with which the Bible deals, and true biblical preaching will set against the transient fancies of this world the grand and heartening wonders of the "age to come."

THE BIBLE ENABLES US TO APPRAISE THE PRESENT MOMENT AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF GOD'S FOREVER!

As a minister and preacher of the Gospel, these thoughts have often surged through my mind.....
What right has one man to tell another man what to believe? By virtue of what inherent authority can a man, himself caught in the coils of sin in which we are all entwined, himself desperate, bleeding, and broken, offer advice to other men as to how to overcome their spiritual ills? This is indeed the final presumption, an audacity that becomes insolence if we only knew it.

The only authority any man has to stand before other men and proclaimed spiritual truth is that he should at that moment be the agent of God, to whom alone belong "the kingdom, and the power and the glory." And to be the agent of God's authority is to bear witness to what God has done for men in Christ, as this is recorded in the Bible and experienced by men who have believed it in all ages.

Whenever freshness he has is not to be the freshness of novelty but the freshness of insight into what the Church has always believed. He does not initiate new truth, but appropriates old truth.

His spontaneity is not to be the discovery of that which others never knew, but rather the "spontaneity of power" in appropriating and enforcing the revelation made by God in Christ--a revelation already full, final, and complete, always believed by the Church universal. It is not the minister's business to say new things, but to say old things with new power.

Obviously, the old faith needs new applications and new interpretations to meet the ever-changing needs of human life in successive generations. But the gospel being interpreted and applied is not new, nor does it every change. It is the authoritative voice of the Church universal, whose authority is that of its Lord who created it and by whose grace it continually lives! It is with these thoughts in mind that we approach our text today. Not my thoughts, but the thoughts of God! Not my words, but the words of Scripture! It is through the Bible that Christ meets as supremely, and it is my prayer that in the moments that follow, each of us will have a personal confrontation with TRUTH! Jesus said that He was the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Jesus says to Nicodemus:
"Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness."

THE DIALOG NOW CHANGES TO DISCOURSE. Jesus is speaking and Nicodemus is listening. As we have noted previously, this was Christ's reply to what Nicodemus had said in his opening statement: "We know that thou art a teacher come from God," declared this representative of the Sanhedrin.

In response, our Lord now says, "We speak that we know, and testify that we have seen." What Christ had said concerning the new birth had struck this ruler of the Jews of being incredible. Hence this solemn and emphatic declaration-"We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen."

Christ was not dealing with metaphysical speculations or theological hypotheses, such as the Jewish doctors

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delight in. Instead, He was affirming that which He knew to be a Divine reality, and testifying to that which had an actual existence and could be seen and observed.

Jesus here speaks in the plural number, including himself and those engaged with Him in preaching the Gospel, namely, John the Baptist. Jesus said in reply: "We, who are engaged in spreading the new doctrines about which you have come to inquire, speak what we know. We do not deliver doctrines which we do not practically understand."

That is a positive affirmation of Jesus, which He had a right to make about His new doctrine. We know its truth, and those who came into His kingdom knew it also. The Pharisees taught doctrines which they did not practically understand. They taught much truth (Matt. 23:2), but they were deplorably ignorant of the plainest matter in their practical application.

Observation!
The teacher of God's Word must not attempt to expound what is not already clear to himself, still less must he speculate upon Divine things, or speak of that of which he has no experimental acquaintance.

Jesus continues: AND YE RECEIVE NOT OUR WITNESS.
There is an obvious connection between this statement and what is recorded in the previous verse. There we find Christ chiding Nicodemus for his ignorance of Divine truth; here He reveals the cause of such ignorance. The reason a man does not know the things of God, is because he receives not God's witness concerning them. First receiving, then knowledge; first believing what God has said, and then an understanding of it. 

This principle is illustrated in Hebrews 11:3:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped-for, the evidence of things not seen.

For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.

BY FAITH WE UNDERSTAND that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are invisible."

To this is the first thing predicated of faith in that wonderful faith chapter. FAITH IS ROOT OF PERCEPTION. As we believe God's Word, He honors our faith by giving us a knowledge of what we have believed. And, if we believe not His Word we shall have no understanding whatsoever of Divine things.

Unbelief!
When the disciples failed in the healing the demoniac, the Scripture say: "Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?" He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." (Matt. 17:19-20)

Zachariah, when promised that he should have a great son (John, the Baptist), did not believe. The angel said to him: "And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time." (Luke 1:20)

Our text in John continues: IF I HAVE TOLD YOU EARTHLY THINGS AND YE BELIEVE NOT, HOW SHALL YE BELIEVE IF I TELL YOU HEAVENLY THINGS?

Jesus reverts to the first person singular and draws attention to what He Himself is doing. He has borne witness to "earthly things" without being believed. The simplest way of understanding this is to see a reference to the present discourse. It was taking place on earth and concerned a process which effects discernible on earth. In contrast with this, Jesus can impart "heavenly things," that is, higher teaching. But if men like Nicodemus will not believe the simpler things they cannot be expected to believe what is more advanced.

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God's law in the spiritual realm corresponds with that which operates in the natural world: there is first the blade, then the ear, and last the full corn in the ear. God will not reveal to us a higher truth until we have thoroughly apprehended the simpler ones first. This, we take it, is the moral principle that Christ here enunciated. "Earthly things" are evident and in measure comprehensible, but "heavenly things" are invisible and altogether beyond our grasp until Divinely reveal to us.

Why is it that our progress is so slow in the things of God? What is it that retards our growth in the knowledge of the truth?

Is not the answer to these and all similar questions stated above: "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you heavenly things?" The earthly things are things which have to do with this earthly realm of human existence. They are the commands of God which are for the regulation of our daily walk down here. If we believe not these, that is, if we do not appropriate them and submit ourselves to them, if we do not receive and heed them, then will God reveal to us the higher mysteries-the "heavenly things?" NO INDEED, FOR THAT WOULD BE SETTING A PREMIUM ON OUR UNBELIEF, AND CASTING PEARLS WITH BEFORE SWINE!

"Heavenly things" is defined by one commentary as: "things pertaining to the government of God and His doings in the heavens; things which are removed from human view, and which cannot be subjected to human sight; the more profound and inscrutable things pertaining to the redemption of man. The feebleness of our understanding and the corruptions of our hearts are the real causes why doctrines of religion are so little understood by us. There is before us a vast eternity, and there are profound wonders of God's government, to be the study of the righteous, and to be seen and admired by them for ever and ever."

Verse 13. (Amplified)
"And yet no one has ever gone up to heaven, but there is One Who has come down from heaven-the Son of Man [Himself], Who is (and dwells, has His home) in heaven."

The connection between this verse and the preceding one seems to be as follows: The "heavenly things" to which the Lord had referred had not till then been clearly reveal to men. To ascend to heaven, and penetrate the hidden counsels of God, was an utter impossibility to fallen man. Only the Son, whose native residence was heaven, was qualified to reveal heavenly things.

SECRET THINGS BELONG TO GOD!

Deut. 29:29
"The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law."

Proverbs 25:2
"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings."

Mark 13:32
"That one knows about the day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Revelation 5:3
"But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it."

Job 8:9
"For we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow."

Ecc. 8:7
"Since no man knows the future, who can tell him what is to come?"

Ecc. 11:5
"As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things."

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Micah 4:12
"But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord; they do not understand his plan, he who gathers them like sheaves to the threshing floor."

Jeremiah 4:22
"My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, they know not how to do good."

In our passage under study in John, Jesus said that "no man hath ascended up to heaven." What did He mean by that statement?

This verse is a favorite one with many of those who believe in "Soul Sleep" and Annihilation." There are those who contend that between death and resurrection man ceases to be. They appeal to this verse and declare it teaches no man, not even Abel or David, has yet gone to heaven.

But it is to be noted that Christ did not say, "no man hath entered heaven," but, "no man hath ascended up to heaven." This is an entirely different thing. "Ascended" no man had, or ever will. What is before us now is only one of ten thousand examples of the minute and marvelous accuracy of Scripture, lost, alas, on the great majority who read it so carelessly and hurriedly. Of Enoch it is recorded that he "was translated" that he should not see death. (Heb. 11:5)

Of Elijah it is said that he "went up by a whirlwind into heaven" (2 Kings 2:11). Of the saints who shall be raptured to heaven at the return of Christ, it is said that they shall be "caught up" (1 Thess. 4:17). Of Christ alone is it said that He ASCENDED. This at once marks His uniqueness, and demonstrates that in ALL THINGS HE HAS THE PRE-EMINENCE (Col. 1:18).

But further observe that the Lord said, "even the Son of man WHICH is in heaven. In heaven, even while speaking to Nicodemus on earth!

This is another evidence of His Deity. It affirmed His Omnipresence. It is remarkable to see that every essential attribute of Deity is predicated of Christ in this Gospel, the special object of which is to unveil His Divine perfections. His ETERNALITY is argued in John 1:1. His Divine GLORY is mentioned in 1:14. His OMNISCIENCE is seen in 1:48 and again in 2:24, 25. His matchless WISDOM is born witness to in 7:46. His unchanging love is affirmed in 13:1.

"EVEN THE SON OF MAN WHICH IS IN HEAVEN" is a very remarkable expression. Jesus, the Son of man, was then bodily on earth conversing with Nicodemus; yet He declares that He is AT THE SAME TIME in heaven. This can be understood only as referring to the fact that He had two natures - that His Divine nature was in heaven, and his human nature on earth. Our Savior is frequently spoken of in this manner.

John 6:62
"What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?"

John 17:5
"And now, 0 Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was."

As Jesus was in heaven - as His proper abode was there - He was fitted to speak of heavenly things, and to declare the will of God to man.

Observation!
The truth about the deep things of God is not to be learned of men. No one has ascended to heaven and returned to tell us what is there; and no infidel, no mere man, no prophet, is qualified of himself to speak of them.

All the light which we are to expect on those subjects is to be sought in Scripture. It is only Jesus and His inspired apostles and evangelists that can speak of those things.

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Verse 14 in our text says: (Amplified)
"And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert [on a pole], so must [so it is necessary that] the Son of Man be lifted up [on the cross].

Numbers 21:1-9
"The king of Arad, the Canaanite, who dwelt in the South, heard that Israel was coming on the road to Atharim. Then he fought against Israel and took some of them prisoners.
So Israel made a vow to the Lord, and said, "If You will indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities."
And the Lord listened to the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. So the name of that place was called Hormah.
Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way.
And the people spoke against God and against Moses: "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread."
So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.
Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live."
So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

Christ had been speaking to Nicodemus about the imperative necessity of the new birth. By nature man is dead in trespasses and sins, and in order to obtain life he must be born again. THE NEW BIRTH IS THE IMPARTATION OF DIVINE LIFE, ETERNAL LIFE, BUT FOR THIS TO BE BESTOWED ON MEN THE SON OF MAN MUST BE LIFTED UP.

Life could come only by death. The sacrificial work of Christ is the basis of the Spirit's operations and the ground of God's gift of eternal life. Observe here that Christ speaks of the lifting up of the Son of man, for atonement could be made only by One in the nature of him whose sinned, and only as Man was God's Son capable of taking upon Him the penalty resting on the sinner. No doubt there was a specific reason why Christ should here refer to His sacrifice death as a "lifting up." The Jews were looking for a Messiah who should be lifted up, but elevated in a manner altogether different from what the Lord here mentions. They expected him to be elevated to the throne of David, but before this He must be lifted upon the Cross of shame, enduring the judgment of God upon His people's sin.

The type (the serpent being lifted up on a pole) is a remarkable one and worthy of our closest study. A "serpent" was a most appropriate figure of that deadly and destructive power, the origin of which the Scriptures teach us to trace to the Serpent, whose "seed" sinners are declared to be. The poison of the serpent's bite, which vitiates the entire system of its victim, and from the fatal effects of which there was no deliverance, save that which God provided, strikingly exhibited the awful nature and consequences of sin.

The remedy which God provided was the exhibition of the DESTROYER DESTROYED!

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Question!
Why was not one of the actual serpents spiked by Moses to the pole? Ah! that would have marred the type; that would have pictured judgment executed on the sinner himself; and, worse still, would have misrepresented our sinless Substitute! In the type chosen there was the likeness of a serpent, not an actual serpent, but a piece of brass made like one. So, the One who is the sinner's Savior was sent "in the likeness of sin's flesh" (Romans 8:3, Gk.), and God "made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21).

Question!
How could a serpent fitly typify the Holy One of God? This is the very last thing of all we had supposed could, with any propriety, be a figure of Him. True, the SERPENT did not, could not, typify Him in His essential character, and perfect life. The brazen serpent only foreshadowed Christ as He was "lifted up." The lifting up manifestly pointed to the Cross. What was the serpent? It was the reminder and emblem of the curse. It was through the agency of that old Serpent, the Devil, that our first parents were seduced, and brought under the curse of a Holy God. And on the cross, the holy One of God, incarnate, was made a curse for us. We would not dare make such an assertion, did not Scripture itself expressly affirm it. In Gal. 3:13 we are told, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." There is no flaw, then, in the type. The foreshadowing was perfect. A SERPENT was the only thing in all nature which could accurately prefigure the crucified Savior made a curse for us.

Question!
But why a SERPENT of brass? Ah! That only brings out once more the perfect accuracy of the type. BRASS speaks of two things. In the symbolism of Scripture BRASS is the emblem of DIVINE JUDGMENT! The BRAZEN altar illustrates this truth, for on it the sacrificial animals were slain and upon it descended the consuming fire from heaven.

Again, in Deut. 28, the Lord declared unto Israel, that if they would not harken unto His voice and do His commandments (v. 15), that His curse should come upon them (v. 16), and as a part of the Divine judgment with which they should be visited, He warned them, "The heaven that is above thy head shall be BRASS" (v. 23). Once more in Revelation 1, where Christ is seen as Judge, inspecting the seven churches, we are told, "His feet were like fine BRASS" (v. 15).

The SERPENT, then, spoke of the curse which sin entailed; the BRASS told of God's JUDGMENT falling on the One made sin for us. But there is another thought suggested by the BRASS. BRASS is harder than iron, or silver or gold. It told, then, of Christ's mighty strength, which was able to endure the awful judgment which fell upon Him, a mere creature, though sinless, would have been utterly consumed.

Just as the bitten Israelites were healed by a look of faith, so the sinner may be saved by looking to Christ by faith. Saving faith is not some difficult and meritorious work which man must perform so as to give him a claim upon God for the blessing of salvation. It is not on account of our faith that God saves us, but it is through the means of our faith. It is in believing we are saved! To say that when a man believes he shall be saved, is just to say that the guiltiest of the guilty, and the vilest of the vile, is welcome to salvation, if he will receive God's wonderful grace and mercy by simply trusting in Christ who was nailed to the Cross! LOOK AND LIVE!

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From what has been said, it will be evident that when God told Moses to make a serpent of brass, fix it upon a pole, and bid the bitten Israelites look on it and they should live, that He was preaching to them the Gospel of His grace. We would now point out seven things which these Israelites were not bidden to do.

(1) THEY WERE NOT TOLD TO MANUFACTURE SOME OINTMENT as the means of healing their wounds.

Doubtless, that would have seemed much more reasonable to them. But it would have destroyed the type. The religious doctors of the day were busy inventing spiritual lotions, but they effect no cures. Salvation is not the result of what we do....it is the result of what He, the Savior did!

(2) THEY WERE NOT TOLD TO MINISTER TO OTHERS, WHO WERE WOUNDED, IN ORDER TO GET RELIEF FOR THEMSELVES. How can one who is dying and unable to deliver himself, help others in a similar state?

(3) THEY WERE NOT TOLD TO FIGHT THE SERPENTS. If some of our moderns had been present that day they would have urged Moses to organize a Society for the Extermination of the Serpents! But of what use had that been to those who were already bitten and dying? Had each stricken one killed a thousand serpents they would still have died. And what does all this fighting sin amount to! True, it affords an outlet for the energy of the flesh; but all these crusades against sin have not brought a single sinner into the kingdom of God. Only Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit, can change a sinner's heart.

(4) THEY WERE NOT TOLD TO MAKE AN OFFERING TO THE SERPENT ON THE POLE. God did not ask any payment from them in return for their healing. And, grace ceases to be grace if any price is paid for what it brings. God does not ask the sinner to give anything, but to RECEIVE CHRIST!

(5) THEY WERE NOT TOLD TO PRAY TO THE SERPENT.

(6) THEY WERE NOT TOLD TO LOOK AT MOSES. They had been looking to Moses, and urging him to cry to God on their behalf; and when God responded, he took their eyes from off Moses, and commanded them to look at the brazen serpent. Moses was the law-giver, and how many today are looking to him for salvation. They are trusting in their own imperfect obedience to God's commandments to take them to heaven. In other words, they are depending on their own works. The Scripture says emphatically, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved as" (Titus 3:15).

(7) THEY WERE NOT TOLD TO LOOK AT THEIR WOUNDS. Some think they need to be more occupied with the work of examining their own wicked hearts in order to promote that degree of repentance which they deem a necessary qualification for salvation. To be occupied with myself is only to be taken up with that which God has condemned, and which already has the sentence of death written upon it. The call of the Gospel is to turn from ours sins to Christ and trust Him to save us and deliver us from sin’s power and guilt!

Turning from the negative to the positive, please note that Moses was commanded by God to make a serpent of brass--it was of the Lord's providing--and the spiritual significance of this we have already look at. Note that Moses was commanded to fix this brazen serpent upon a pole. Thus was the Divine remedy PUBLICLY exhibited so that all Israel might look on it and be healed.

Not only did God here give a foreshadowing of the MEANS by which salvation was to be brought out for sinners, but also the MANNER in which the sinner obtains an interest in that salvation, namely, by looking away from himself to the Divinely appointed object of faith, even to the Lord Jesus Christ.